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will help fit them for things above
glove making, if possible.
Well, there are three' answers
which you can pick up in Glovers
ville. Here is the first one from
Supt. James A. Estee, who repre
sents the view-point of the public
schools in this amazing situation,
where public schools are training
pupils to enter one trade, and are
teaching no other trades.
"We have established our Vo
cational school," says Supt. Estee
in his report, "because, as Gov.
Foss of Massachusetts has said,
'in the lack of such training we
find one fruitful cause of many
aimless careers which can lead to
nothing that is good and must
tend to swell the number of our
ineffectives.' "
Here is answer No. 2.
This is from Lucius N. Littauer,
head of the glove business 'in
Gloversville. Littauer, who was
once a congressman and is a mil
lionaire, appeared not long ago
before the national ways and
means committee with arguments
which persuaded that committee
to increase the tax on women's
and children's gloves.
"Of course the manufacturers'
association is for such training,"
says Littauer. "We aid it all we
can. We need helpers and the
pupils need work when they get
out of school."
And here is answer No. 3.
This is from Leo Grinnell, so
cialist member of the board of
education.
"Pressure of the manufactur
ers has established a glove mak-
course in the public schools be
cause they want to get the cheap,
efficient help of the very yourig
and they do not want to bear the
expense of maintaining an ap
prentice school for those who are
desirous of entering the- gloVe
trade."
Grinnell was elected to the
board of education for two pur
poses to work for the introduc
tion of free text books in the
schools and for abolishing the
teaching of glove making to
pupils.
"Before I said anything about
it at the board meeting," . says
Grinnell, "I made a personal in
vestigation and found that of the
150 pupils who had elected to take
this two-year trade course, but a
very few took it because they
wanted it. Nevertheless, they
were all learning gloye making.
"I found that the great need
here is the installation in the
schools of a real vocational course
where such things as carpentry,
machine shop work, dressmaking
and domestic science can be
taught. The pupils who have
technical bents long for such
things.
They say tome:
" 'We don't want to learn glove
making. We all know what a
nasty, poorly paid trade it is. We
want to learn something else so
that when we get out of school we
can begin to earn money right
away at good, clean trades. Now,
as things are, we have to learn
glove making or nothing, if we
want a trade.'
"And you can see what this sit
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